UFC middleweight Kelvin Gastelum gets a second shot at Joe Pyfer at UFC 316 on Saturday night a couple of months since their first bout was canceled.
Pyfer had to withdraw from their original booking at UFC Mexico City back in March after he fell ill. The UFC apparently wanted a quick rebooking, but Gastelum declined for reasons most would understand.
“They wanted me to fight Joe Pyfer. They had asked me if I wanted to go the next weekend. I said, ‘I just think that would give him an advantage’,” Gastelum told reporters including Cageside Press on Wednesday.
“At a higher weight class. The next weekend, not at elevation, it would just give him the advantage. We settled on June 7th here in New Jersey. I’m a company man so I kind of do what I’m told. They wanted Joe Pyfer and we rebooked him.”
Gastelum (19-9) hasn’t spoken out much after Pyfer made comments about Mexico calling it a ‘sh*thole’ after he fell ill and had to pull out of the fight. While he wasn’t cool about the comments Gastelum declined to make too much out of them.
“Obviously it did leave a little bit of a sour taste in my mouth. I just think the way he went about it was a little rude. He shouldn’t say those things about other people’s countries. He should have been better about the way he went about it,” said Gastelum.
“I don’t think those comments were right.”
The bout was one of the more anticipated ones on that UFC Mexico City card, and Gastelum wasn’t too happy that it got canceled. At least in New Jersey he’ll get to actually fight Pyfer.
“I’m happy that it’s here. We were ready for Mexico City, I spent the whole month out there, brought a whole camp out there. It was so much time and investment financially. It was a hard grueling camp,” he told Cageside Press.
“We were planning to use the elevation as part of a weapon. It was unfortunate that it didn’t happen there.”
Watch the entire media day scrum with Kelvin Gastelum above. He faces Joe Pyfer at UFC 316 on Saturday night.
